Method for measuring loss in cavity of LD pumping solid laser and device using method
[ technical field ] the following steps:
the invention relates to the technical field of lasers; in particular to measuring the intra-cavity loss of an LD pumping solid laser; especially, the loss in the cavity of the LD pumping solid laser is measured under the conditions of short laser cavity and low gain.
[ background ] the following:
the LD pumping solid laser has small volume and low cost, and can be widely applied to a plurality of fields such as laser ranging, optical communication and the like. Intra-cavity round-trip loss is an important indicator in the production, development and maintenance of such lasers. Its relationship to the net gain of the laser is the primary factor that determines the operating conditions of the laser. Besides, accurately determining the round-trip loss in the cavity is also a necessary condition for applying various laser technologies such as Q-switching, frequency stabilization, mode selection and the like to an LD pumping solid laser.
The most common method for measuring the loss in the cavity of the solid laser at present is Findlay-Clay analysis. According to the method, pumping threshold values under different output mirror reflectivities are measured firstly, and then the relation between the output mirror reflectivities and the pumping threshold values is utilized to obtain the loss value in the laser cavity through numerical value fitting. This method requires the replacement of several sets of output mirrors of different reflectivity and requires a large range of reflectivity variation, so that the round-trip loss in the cavity can be accurately measured. It is only suitable for lasers with higher gain. The Findlay-Clay analysis method also needs to change the structure of the resonant cavity, not only brings certain errors to measurement, but also has no effect on the laser packaged by the resonant cavity. In many LD pump lasers, especially microchip lasers, the laser medium length is short and the gain is relatively low, and in order to achieve laser operation, it is often necessary to select an output mirror with high reflectivity for output coupling. Such lasers have difficulty replacing the output mirror within a certain reflectivity range, which results in certain limitations in the use of the Findlay-Clay analysis method. The Findlay-Clay analysis method is also not applicable to lasers that are already packaged or do not want to be tuned.
Another way to measure the round trip loss in the cavity is from a theoretical analysis of the rate of laser operation. The theoretical model of this method usually only considers the generation of laser light, ignoring other transition processes. However, the energy level of the luminescence center particles in the solid laser medium is rich, and the structure is complex; after being excited by the pumping source, besides the excitation of the laser lower-level particles and the radiation transition of the laser upper-level particles, other transition processes exist, such as non-radiation relaxation, up-conversion luminescence and the like which often occur in a rare earth ion doped laser medium. Under the condition of LD high pumping power density pumping, these transition processes bring extra loss, which significantly affects the operation and laser output of the laser. The reliability of the measurement and calculation results will be difficult to guarantee by considering only the lasing process of the solid state laser and accounting for the effects of other transition processes into the intra-cavity losses.
[ summary of the invention ]:
in order to solve the problems of the background art, the invention provides a method for measuring the loss in a cavity of an LD-pumped solid-state laser, which has simple operation and accurate result and is easy to implement in research and production, under the condition of considering other transition processes occurring simultaneously with a laser process, and a device using the method.
The invention principle of the invention is as follows: various energy conversion processes accompanied with the generation of laser can be expressed in a rate equation, and the distribution of the population density of the reversed particles in the laser medium and the gain of the laser are influenced; the relationship between the laser gain and the laser loss is finally reflected in the relationship between the output laser power and the pumping power, and the output laser power and the corresponding pumping power of the LD pumping solid-state laser can be easily measured in experiments.
When the working substance in the LD pumping solid laser is excited by the pumping source, the number of particles in each energy level influencing the laser operation can be changed rapidly. The laser operation is stable and the number of particles at each energy level is stable. Although the velocity equation set of various solid-state lasers listed on the basis is not the same, the gain of the laser is equal to the loss when the laser operates stably, and the gain can be expressed as that the change rate of the number of photons in the oscillation optical cavity is zero, that is:
the first term in equation (1) is the volume fraction of the resonant cavity. Where s is the excited state emission cross-section of the luminescent particle, c 0 Is the vacuum beam velocity, N is the refractive index of the working material, N is the inverse particle number density, and the pumping photon flow density W P Is related to the number density phi of the oscillating photons, W P And pumping power P in The relation of (A) is as follows:
a is the laser medium absorption coefficient, l is the laser medium length, v P Is the pumping light frequency, N 0 Is the ground state particle number density, omega P Is the pumping light spot radius; f is the total number of photons of the oscillation light in the resonant cavity, which is related to the output laser power P out The relationship of (1) is:
l is the cavity length of the resonant cavity, R is the reflectivity of the output mirror, v e Is the laser frequency; the relationship between F and φ is:
ω 0 the radius of the laser spot; t is the photon lifetime in the oscillating optical cavity, and the expression is as follows:
d is the intracavity loss measured by the present invention.
The inverse population density N may be solved by a rate equation. After solving for N, in conjunction with equations (1) - (5), the laser power P can be adjusted out And pumping power P in The relationship of (a) is numerically solved. The invention combines the relation between the laser power and the pumping power measured in the experiment with the equations (1) to (5) and obtains the value of the loss d in the cavity through numerical fitting.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of measuring the intra-cavity loss of an LD-pumped solid-state laser, comprising the steps of:
(1) Measuring the relation between the laser power and the pumping power;
(2) And (4) carrying out numerical fitting by using a rate equation to determine the round-trip loss value in the cavity.
Preferably, the experimental subject in the measurement of the relation between the laser power and the pumping power is an LD pumping solid-state laser.
Preferably, no modification of the laser cavity or any of its internal components is required.
Preferably, the rate equation considered in the numerical fitting to the rate equation not only relates to the laser oscillation, but also takes into account other transition processes that affect the laser operation.
More preferably, other transition processes affecting laser operation include excited state absorption of rare earth ions, radiationless relaxation, energy accumulation up-conversion, co-ordination up-conversion, and the like.
In addition, both the pump light and the laser are gaussian in a numerical fit to the rate equation.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided an LD-pumped solid-state laser using the above method, wherein preferably the LD-pumped solid-state laser may be an all-solid-state LD end-pumped erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass microchip solid-state laser; the LD pumping solid laser comprises an LD pumping source, a pumping coupling system, a microchip laser resonant cavity and an erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass microchip; the LD pumping solid-state laser outputs a laser band with a wavelength of 1.54 μm.
Compared with other prior art, the invention has the following advantages: (1) The invention can realize the non-interference measurement of the round trip loss in the cavity of the solid laser without replacing output mirrors with different reflectivities when measuring the round trip loss in the cavity. (2) The theoretical model of the invention considers the Gaussian distribution of the pumping light and the oscillating light and other various energy conversion processes which are generated simultaneously with the laser oscillation in the laser medium and can influence the laser operation. These energy conversion processes in solid state lasers are often significant and can only be accurately measured by taking full consideration in a theoretical model. (3) The experimental device is simple, does not need to change the structure of the laser resonant cavity, can conveniently measure the round trip loss in the laser cavity packaged by the resonant cavity, and has low cost and easy actual operation.
The method and the device can be applied to a plurality of fields such as laser ranging, optical communication, laser medical treatment and the like.
[ description of drawings ]:
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the structure of an apparatus according to embodiment 1 of the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the energy levels and associated transitions of an erbium ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass laser using the apparatus of FIG. 1;
fig. 3 is experimental measurement data of the relationship between the output power and the pumping power when the erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass laser using the apparatus shown in fig. 1 adopts a flat cavity with a cavity length of 5mm, and a relationship curve between the output power and the pumping power when the loss in the cavity is taken to be 0.0045, 0.0052 and 0.006, which are obtained by numerical simulation;
FIG. 4 is a schematic structural view of an apparatus according to embodiment 2 of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an apparatus according to embodiment 3 of the present invention;
FIG. 6 is the experimental data of the relationship between the output power and the pumping power of the erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass laser with a cavity length of 1mm, which is obtained by integrating the cavity mirror of the resonant cavity with the laser medium using the device shown in FIG. 5, and the relationship between the output power and the pumping power when the values of the loss in the cavity are 0.002, 0.0033 and 0.005, which are obtained by numerical simulation.
[ specific examples ]:
the objects, features and advantages of the present invention are further illustrated in detail by the accompanying drawings and the following examples, but the present invention is not limited to these examples.
Example 1: as shown in fig. 1, the device of the present invention includes a pump semiconductor laser 1, a pump coupling system 2, a laser medium 3, a laser flat resonator 4, a 975nm filter 5, and a power meter 6. Wherein the pump halfAfter pump light with the wavelength of 975nm output by the waveguide laser 1 passes through the pump coupling system 2, a basic mode Gaussian distribution circular light spot with the radius of 75 mu m is coupled at the laser medium 3. The laser medium 3 is erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass microchip with thickness of 1mm, erbium ion concentration N e Is 9.88 multiplied by 10 25 /cm 3 Ytterbium ion concentration N Y Is 2.01 multiplied by 10 27 /cm 3 . The laser medium 3 is excited to emit light with a wavelength of 1540nm, and the light is output as laser light after oscillation in the laser resonant cavity 4. In the embodiment, the full reflector of the resonant cavity of the microchip laser is replaced by a 1540nm high-reflection film plated on the surface of the laser medium, the output mirror is a flat mirror, the reflection rate is 99 percent, and the cavity length is adjustable. A 975nm filter plate is plated with a 1540nm antireflection film; after filtering out 975nm pump light, the 1540nm laser power was measured by power meter 6.
The energy level structure and rate equation analysis for the erbium ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass used in this example is shown schematically in FIG. 2 and described in detail below:
in the ground state 2 F 7/2 Ytterbium ion of energy level absorbs the excitation light of about 975nm emitted from LD and then transits to excited state 2 F 5/2 Energy level and then transfers the energy to erbium ions by energy transfer. There are two main energy transfer processes: 2 F 5/2 (Yb 3+ )+ 4 I 15/2 (Er 3+ )→ 2 F 7/2 (Yb 3+ )+ 4 I 11/2 (Er 3+ ), 2 F 5/2 (Yb 3+ )+ 4 I 13/2 (Er 3+ )→ 2 F 7/2 (Yb 3+ )+ 4 F 9/2 (Er 3+ ) Which correspond to the ET1 and ET2 processes, respectively, in fig. 1. In which ET1 causes erbium ions to transition from the ground state to 4 I 11/2 Energy level, after which most of the particles will relax to the upper laser energy level by non-radiation 4 I 13/2 . In that 4 I 13/2 In addition to the excited radiation returning to the ground state to emit 1.54 μm laser light, a part of the particles are further excited by accumulated energy transfer and cooperative up-conversionTo a higher energy level (diagram)ET2 in 1 and process 5) to produce green and red and near infrared up-converted luminescence when the particles at these higher energy levels return to the ground state, thereby reducing the population at the laser upper energy level, reducing the population of the inversion, and affecting the pumping threshold and output power of the laser.
In view of the above excitation and transition processes, we can write a simplified steady state rate equation for single mode operation:
in the formula, N 1Y 、N 2Y Are respectively ytterbium ion 2 F 7/2 , 2 F 5/2 Particle number density of energy level, N Y Is Yb 3+ Total particle number density of ions, N 1E 、N 2E 、N 3E 、N 4E 、N 5E Respectively being erbium ions 4 I 15/2 、 4 I 13/2 、 4 I 11/2 、 4 I 9/2 、 4 F 9/2 A population density of energy levels as a function of spatial position; n = N 2E -B 1E Is the inverse population density. N is a radical of 3E 、N 4E And N 5E The energy level particle number is far less than N 1E 、N 2E So that N is E =N 2E +N 1E Approximately the total population density of erbium ions; k is a radical of 1 N 2Y N 1E 、k 2 N 2Y N 2E Represents the change in particle number density, CN, caused by the energy transfer processes ET1, ET2, respectively 2E 2 Representing the change in particle number density, k, due to co-ordinative up-conversion 1 、k 2 C are the rate coefficients of the three processes respectively, and the sizes of the three processes are determined by the properties of ions and matrixes; gamma ray y 、γ e Are respectively ytterbium ion 2 F 5/2 Energy level and erbium ion 4 I 13/2 Spontaneous emission probability of energy level; sigma y Is Yb 3+ Absorption cross section of (a); a. The w1 、A w2 And A w3 Multiple relaxation processes of erbium ions respectively(ii) a photon radiationless relaxation rate; sigma e Is the stimulated radiation section of erbium ions; and n is the refractive index of the laser medium. Intracavity photon lifetime τ c The expression of (a) is:
l is the length of the laser medium in the cavity, L is the cavity length, R is the reflectivity of the output mirror, and delta is the required backward loss in the cavity. The rate equations (6) - (10) can be simplified as:
after the equation (12) and the equation (13) are substituted into the equation (15), the inverse particle number density N and the number density phi of the intracavity oscillation photons, the pumping photon flow density W can be solved p And the spatial position.
Total pumping speed W, pumping photon flux density W p Pumping power P in Oscillating optical output power P out The relation between the total photon number F of the intracavity oscillation light and the photon number density phi of the intracavity oscillation light in the embodiment has the following specific expression:
under the condition that the laser and the pumping light are in Gaussian distribution, the relation between the laser power and the pumping power has no analytical expression; however, after the laser power and the corresponding pumping power are measured in the experiment, the expression of the number density N of the overturning ions is solved by combining the equations (12), (13) and (15); then only τ remains in equation (11) c The parameter intra-cavity loss δ in the expression is unknown. The intra-cavity loss delta can be fitted using sets of laser powers and corresponding pump power values measured experimentally, in combination with equation (11).
The numerical simulation parameters used in this example are as follows: ytterbium ion 975nm absorption section s y Is composed of11.65×10 -21 cm 2 1540nm emission section s of erbium ion e Is 3.34 × 10 -21 cm 2 (ii) a Ytterbium ion 4 F 5/2 Energy level to erbium ions 4 I 15/2 Energy level energy transfer coefficient k 1 Is 5 x 10 -16 cm 3 S; ytterbium ion 4 F 5/2 Energy level to erbium ions 4 I 13/2 Energy level energy accumulation up-conversion coefficient k 2 Is 5X 10 -16 cm 3 S; erbium ion 4 I 13/2 The conversion coefficient C of the energy level co-ordination is 6 x 10 -19 cm 3 S; ytterbium ion 4 F 5/2 Probability of spontaneous emission of energy level gamma y Is 1000/s; erbium ion 4 I 13/2 Probability of spontaneous emission gamma of energy level e Is 125/s.
FIG. 3 is a graph of output laser power versus pumping power using a flat resonator with a 5mm cavity length, where the discrete points are the measurement points in the experiment. The experimental data were used for numerical fitting, and the intracavity loss d of the resonator was 0.0052. FIG. 3 also plots, by numerical simulation, the output laser power P when the intracavity loss δ is 0.0045, 0.0052 and 0.006 respectively under the condition of using a flat resonant cavity with a cavity length of 5mm out And pumping power P in Is measured in the graph (c). Wherein the curve of which the value delta is 0.0052 is well matched with the experimental points. The round-trip loss in a flat cavity with a cavity length of 3.5mm, measured in the same way, was 0.0034. If the up-conversion effect is not considered in the rate equation, the loss value in the cavity is 0.0724 and 0.0846 under the condition that the cavity length is 3.5mm and 5mm, respectively, and is obviously too high.
Example 2: this example is essentially the same as example 1 except that as shown in section 4 of fig. 4, the radius of curvature of the output mirror of the resonator of the microchip laser is 214mm, the reflectivity is 99%, the mirror forms a flat cavity with a 1540nm highly reflective film plated on the laser medium, and the energy level and rate equation analysis is the same as in example 1. In the case of cavity lengths of 4.5, 5.5, 6.5mm, the reciprocal loss in the flat-bowl cavity was 0.0048, 0.0056, 0.0059, respectively.
Example 3: as shown in fig. 5, the device for implementing the invention comprises a pumping semiconductor laser 1, a pumping coupling system 2, a laser medium 3, a 975nm filter 4 and a power meter 5. Wherein, the pumping semiconductor laser 1 outputs pumping light with the wavelength of 975nm, and the pumping light is coupled to a basic mode Gaussian distribution circular light spot with the radius of 75 mu m at a laser medium 3 after passing through a pumping coupling system 2. The laser medium 3 is an erbium-ytterbium co-doped phosphate glass microchip with the thickness of 1mm and the erbium ion concentration N e Is 9.88 multiplied by 10 25 /cm 3 Ytterbium ion concentration N Y Is 2.01X 10 27 /cm 3 . One side of the laser medium 3 close to the pumping coupling system 2 is plated with a full reflection film with a 1.54 mu m wave band and an antireflection film with a 0.98 mu m wave band transmissivity of more than 85%, and the other side is plated with a film with a 1% transmissivity of a 1.54 mu m wave band. The coating on the two sides of the laser medium 3 replaces the diode pumping fixation in the exampleA resonator holophote and an output coupling mirror of the laser. The energy level and rate equation analysis was the same as in example 1. The laser medium 3 is excited to radiate light with a wavelength of 1540nm, and the light is output as laser after oscillation. The diode pumping solid laser in the embodiment is characterized in that the resonant cavity mirror is replaced by a coating film on the surface of a laser medium. The resonant cavity and the laser medium are integrated together, and the resonant cavity and any device inside the resonant cavity cannot be changed.
Fig. 6 is a graph of output laser power versus pumping power when using this cavity type. The intra-cavity loss δ through fitting the resonant cavity was 0.0033. FIG. 6 also plots the output laser power P when the intracavity loss δ is 0.002, 0.0033 and 0.005 respectively under the condition of using the integrated resonant cavity by numerical simulation out And pump power P in The relationship of (1). The curve with the value of delta of 0.0033 is well matched with the experimental points.